Brockhurst Observatory

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Brockhurst Observatory
Consist 1909 to 1939
Type Private observatory
height 130  m ASL
Coordinates 51 ° 7 '4.8 "  N , 0 ° 0' 32.4"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 7 '4.8 "  N , 0 ° 0' 32.4"  E
place East Grinstead , West Sussex , England
operator Frederick Janson Hanbury
management William Sadler Franks (1910-1935), Patrick Moore (1935-1939)

The Brockhurst Observatory , also Hanbury's Observatory called, was a 1909 built, well-appointed private observatory in southern England East Grinstead , West Sussex . It was also used for research and the creation of a fog catalog . Before its closure in 1940, it was run by the young Patrick Moore (1923–2012), who brought this task to astronomy.

history

In 1908 Frederick Janson Hanbury (1851-1938) bought the Brockhurst estate in East Grinstead on the border with Ashurst Wood . Hanbury, who had made his money as a senior partner at the pharmaceutical company Allen & Hanburys , came from a family of passionate gardeners, for example his cousin Thomas Hanbury ; Frederick Janson Hanbury himself was a fellow of the Linnean Society . In addition to rock gardens and pleasure grounds, Hanbury also built an observatory on his property in 1909 .

The observatory equipped with a Cooke 6⅛- inch - refractor (155 mm) with a focal length of 82 inches (208 cm), a Troughton & Simms 2¾-inch- transit instrument and a small library. A Bush 24-inch reflector (600 mm) with an aperture of f / 4 on an equatorial mount was located in a separate building until 1930 . Six thermometers , a sunshine autograph and a rain gauge were used as meteorological measuring instruments . The meteorological data was submitted daily to the local newspaper and annually to Hugh Robert Mills British Rainfall .

Hanbury appointed William Sadler Franks (1851-1935), who accepted this invitation in 1910, as the first director . Frank's job was to have the instruments ready for the guests at Hanbury to show them various astronomical objects. The rest of the time was free for his own observations. In addition to his studies of the colors of the stars , which he has been doing since the 1870s, Franks also devoted himself to the observation of nebulae , planets and double stars at the Brockhurst Observatory . There he also edited the revision of the index catalog by Johann Georg Hagen from the Vatican observatory .

The future astronomer and specialist author Patrick Moore (1923-2012) was on August 21, 1933 at the age of 10, together with his family for the first time guest at Hanbury. After the death of Franks he took over the management of the observatory. After Hanbury's death, it was dismantled in 1939 and the Cooke refractor sold for £ 40. Frank's extensive observation books were given to Moore.

literature

  • Patrick Moore: Brockhurst: A Small Twentieth-Century Observatory . In: Society for the History of Astronomy Newsletter . Issue 1, November 2002, p. 3 , bibcode : 2002SHAN .... 1Q ... 3M (English, SHA [PDF]).
  • Patrick Moore: William Sadler Franks, 1851-1935 . In: Journal of the British Astronomical Association . Vol. 112, No. 5, 2002, p. 247–253 , bibcode : 2002JBAA..112..247M (English).
  • Richard Pearson (Ed.): The Brockhurst Observatory . Revised 2014. Astronomy & Space, Nottingham 2014, ISBN 978-1-326-01840-5 (English).
  • Jeremy Shears: William Sadler Franks and the Brockhurst Observatory . In: Journal of the British Astronomical Association . Vol. 125, No. 4, 2015, p. 220-228 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brockhurst is a garden monument , registered on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Interest in England under the number 1000348 . There are also two West Sussex Historic Environment Records (HERs), one for the house ( MWS8346 ) and one for the garden ( MWS3709 ).
  2. ↑ Madeline Cox: Some Nottinghamshire Astronomers . In: The Antiquarian Astronomer . Journal of the Society for the History of Astronomy. Issue 4, January 2008, p. 30–31 , bibcode : 2008AntAs ... 4 ... 23C (English).
  3. ↑ Frederick Janson Hanbury: A Sussex Rock Garden . In: Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society . Volume 42, 1916, pp. 273 (English, archive.org ).
  4. ^ William Sadler Franks, Johann Georg Hagen: The Letter and Number Scales of Visual Star Colors . Supplement to Volume III. In: Specola Astronomica Vaticana . Vol. XV. Vatican Polyglot Printing Office, Rome 1923, bibcode : 1918VatPS ... 3E ... 1F (English).